The prior art already discloses a multiplicity of apparatuses having moving parts. The moving parts may be in the form of cogs, rollers, shafts or gripper arms. The apparatuses may be in the form of industrial robots, conveyor belts or in the form of comprehensive production installations, for example. The apparatuses may furthermore include control elements, drive elements or communication means.
Alternatively, even larger systems are known which comprise a plurality of said apparatuses. In this case, the individual apparatuses are connected to one another for the purpose of implementing one or more work steps. Such systems are used in large conveyor installations, complex drives or in production lines.
Against this background, what are known as indoor systems having moving parts are known which are in the form of automatic process chains in the metal-processing industry, the automobile industry, the food industry or the paper industry, for example. What are known as outdoor systems are used in the construction industry or in mining, for example.
Apparatuses having moving parts frequently extend into many different areas of a technical installation and therefore exhibit a large physical extent. Furthermore, such apparatuses have a complex structure and frequently include a large number of moving parts. The apparatuses often perform complicated work steps which are successive and/or coincide with one another in time.
In order to safeguard error-free and reliable operation of the apparatuses, these often need to be monitored and checked at different locations at the same time. The known apparatuses already usually have one or more apparatus-internal memories which are used to store data or signals.
In order to check and diagnose such complex apparatuses reliably, it is desirable to capture not only the already stored data and signals but also further data from the apparatuses, however. To this end, the apparatuses currently need to be upgraded with complex test superstructures.